Chicago web development, now that cloud software costs 15% more in the city.

Chicago's Personal Property Lease Transaction Tax covers the non-possessory lease of a computer, which in practice means cloud software and SaaS used in the city. The rate was 9% from 2021, 11% in 2025, and 15% from January 1, 2026. Every per-seat subscription a Chicago business pays now carries that on top. Nobody should build software to dodge a tax, but it does change which subscriptions are still worth their price.

The bigger opportunity is the one Chicago's economy has always offered. Distribution, manufacturing and food production run on ordering, quoting and inventory, often through systems older than the web and a lot of email. A reorder portal for repeat B2B customers, or a quoting tool tied to real inventory, removes calls and errors immediately. Customers like it too; nobody enjoys emailing a spreadsheet to place the same order as last month. Connecting those tools to the ERP already running is API integration work, and it is where we usually start. Our own Riggins Inventory Services build replaced a spreadsheet that had stopped coping; the pattern is a common one.

A custom tool still has to be hosted somewhere, and how the lease tax treats your setup is a question for your accountant, not your developer. What we can do is document the hosting plainly so they can answer it. Custom applications start from $575, depending on complexity, with the scope in writing before work begins.